A 2-dimentional array with width = 6 and height = 4.
Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
41–50 of 58 posts
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#42I find it really interesting that people instinctively say 24, which to me means they know the answer, but they don't actually compute it - it's just learnt, which is why if I asked 14*19, most people would reach for a calculator. It Reflects a lot of maths and education in general nowadays - it's more important to know the answer over why that is the answer. It should be the opposite - the latter is far more important.
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#436" by 4" photograph.
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#446" by 4" photograph.
Me too. That's what 6x4 will always means to me -- standard sized prints.
As for the wording of the options, in maths terms, I never think in terms of 'so many lots of something' -- it's just 6 times 4 (well, I guess that's semantically the same as 4 lots of 6, but I'd never think of it in those words).
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#45First I assumed it was related to timber (though I'm squarely from a metric culture).
I see the 6 and 4 as being equal and congruent, so I don't imagine one number as multiplier of a lot of some other thing or visually as groups of things. I guess my answer would be the dry mathematical 24. Maybe I'd be better at mathematics if I'd try to visualise things more...
Your question reminds me of the little experiment Feynman did where he tried counting to a minute while reading, and how people can see and do even simple tasks differently in their head.
Ways Of Thinking: http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/feynman/
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#46A big chunk of wood.
Strangely, despite coming from South Africa, where I've never heard the terminology used in real life (maybe it is, but I don't do much woodwork), I've watched enough American crime series that the wood terminology came to mind immediately. I had to Google to confirm that the terminology refers to wood, and not, say, a large metal pole.
Google also tells me that it's actually a 2by4: "He took a 2x4 to the head".
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#47Six sets of four reps each. But that's a really weird routine. I recommend 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps for most people.
Three sets of Five reps (except the deadlift which one set of five is good, and the power clean, which I can't do anyways.)
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#48The ordinary language expression "six times four" [and a wasted opportunity to use Polish notation]. After that "24" and I don't mean some picture of countable things but just the abstraction called "24". Even after reading the poll answers none of the this-or-that options even prompt an image of a grouping. What makes algebraic notation useful is that it abstracts away the need to model the calculation further in mo…
That is an interesting idea. It is the opposite of how my kid is learning math in the 4th grade today. They are taught to think about grouping and what the phrase represents in an attempt to make it more intuitive. Then if they don't know 7x4 then they can work it out by adding one more group of 4 to 6x4. Eventually the hope is that it will become rote memory. I learned it by memorizing the facts although I could have forgotten the other part of the lesson. I mostly remember times table quizzes.
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#49Because it's not in an obviously maths context, I read it as "Six by Four", the first association in my mind for that is cars - 4 x 4 being four wheel drive, so I guess 6 x 4 would be a six wheeled vehicle with 4 driven wheels.
Not a block of wood with a cross section the size of three two-by-fours?
Re: Poll: Asking for a friend – what do you understand by "6x4"
#50The ordinary language expression "six times four" [and a wasted opportunity to use Polish notation]. After that "24" and I don't mean some picture of countable things but just the abstraction called "24". Even after reading the poll answers none of the this-or-that options even prompt an image of a grouping. What makes algebraic notation useful is that it abstracts away the need to model the calculation further in mo…
That is an interesting idea. It is the opposite of how my kid is learning math in the 4th grade today. They are taught to think about grouping and what the phrase represents in an attempt to make it more intuitive. Then if they don't know 7x4 then they can work it out by adding one more group of 4 to 6x4. Eventually the hope is that it will become rote memory. I learned it by memorizing the facts although I could hav…
In the US the increased use and then widespread adoption of Common Core over the past decade or so has changed mathematics pedagogy. There's much more attention to procedurall reasoning and its systematic content standards in the elementary grades has reduced the prevalence of ad hoc methods.
When my son started multiplying fractions, the instruction from the teacher was clear and to the point: Parents don't teach them the methods you learned.